From yesterday to today : Forgiveness in politics in Benin

“Forgiving is sometimes a mistake”, President Patrice Talon would have declared in response to the request for pardon made by the Les Démocrates party during an audience at the Palais de la Marina this Monday 27 November 2023. However, the recent history of Benin is made up of “pardons” granted to key political actors.

Arrived at the palace at the invitation of the President of the Republic, former head of state Yayi Boni, now head of the opposition, and members of his party exchanged four hours on the issues that concern the Democrats party (LD). These include the release of political detainees, notably Reckya Madougou and Joël Aïvo. While an amnesty bill is on the agenda in the National Assembly, they pleaded for a presidential pardon, which had the advantage of being immediate. In response, Patrice Talon simply ruled out this possibility. The LD leader's bargaining, who asked for forgiveness, did nothing about it.
No doubt President Talon wants to avoid impunity, assuming that the prisoners and the exiles have really committed the faults for which they suffer the situations which are currently theirs. By this posture, the head of state seems to be breaking with practice throughout the last three decades in Benin where the notion of forgiveness and grace has allowed democracy to gain momentum and take root.
The last case of “forgiveness” that the Beninese remember is the one from which Patrice Talon himself benefited. In a very controversial matter, the latter had to go into exile to escape the fury of his friend and ally Yayi Boni, then President of the Republic. But a few months before the presidential election of 2016, Yayi Boni announced that he forgave Talon and that he could return to Benin without fearing anything. The following, is that he won the vote and is, since, in power.
The reinstatement of democracy in 1990 would not have been possible without the “pardon” granted to General Mathieu Kérékou and the leaders of the then Revolutionary regime. At the opening of the National Conference, the delegates adopted a provision granting President Kérékou total immunity from possible mistakes and crimes committed during his 17 years in power. This initiative reassured the regime at the time and reassured the General who, in return, is committed to implementing, " without reservation ", all the conclusions of the Conference.
But before that, in 1989 when the regime was in agony, the head of state had amnestied all the numerous “counter-revolutionaries then called “local lackeys of imperialism”. The best known were Me Adrien Houngbédji and Emile Derlin Zinsou who was President of the Republic in 1969. At the time, a death sentence weighed like a sword of Damocles on Me Houngbédji. As for Zinsou, he had been sentenced to death twice.
At the same time, the prisons of the Revolution which were filled with communists and others, opened their doors, calming down for good the bad atmosphere that reigned in the country. Later, most of these political actors held high positions under the same Kérékou who had them condemned.
Should we always make a clean slate of the past in politics ? If the question deserves debate, it should be noted that in Benin, this greatly contributed to the rooting of democracy.

Pierre MATCHOUDO